A jewelry designer who doesn’t wear earrings isn’t sacrilege, it’s inspiration—at least, it is for Bjørg Nordli-Mathisen. Since launching her label Bjørg in 2004, the Norwegian designer has made a name for herself with 100-percent natural pieces often featuring big, beautiful stones. But for spring, she ventured outside of her comfort zone and created complex ear and armpieces (to just call them earrings or bracelets wouldn’t do them justice). “Earrings have always struck me as the most conventional and dull pieces, as there are certain limitations,” says Nordli-Mathisen, adding, “To be brutally honest, this [collection] stems from a longing to do something radically different and something I myself would like to wear. We are always searching for new ways that one can wear [earrings] and doing them on a scale that is perhaps unexpected and that adds something new and makes them feeling interesting.”

For the spring 2012 Odyssey collection the unexpected comes in the form of ear cuffs with so-called “unicorn mane” fanning out like sunrays, snakehead-shaped earpieces with a dangling chain long enough to double as a necklace, and armpieces molded like a spine and spanning the length of the forearm. Nature is a constant reference, but not in the way we typically think of when it comes to accessories. As Nordli-Mathisen puts it, “My view is that nature’s own designs can never really be topped, but you can present these shapes or structures through new materials, or in a new scale which reveals a beauty that we might not have noticed before.” For her, it’s adding a bit futurism into each, as she “like[s] to think of these pieces as the distant past and the distant future colliding and becoming present—the pieces are very organic and almost like artifacts in texture, yet their shapes feel more futuristic.”

So what does one wear with lobe-hugging ear cuffs or hair-trimmed bangles? “In my dream world I would love to see people wearing nothing else,” half-jokes the designer, before adding, “I think these pieces make a lot of noise on their own and it can be beautiful to see these pieces accompanied by a more minimalistic and elegant style, rather than mixed in with too many color combinations or patterns.”